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Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Professional Sports and Hummingbirds

You might be thinking, no connection. But au contrair, mon ami.

What if I were to tell you that hummingbirds are only found in the western hemisphere and as a resident of that hemisphere I felt extremely proud of this fact? What if I inexplicably claimed, “They are our hummingbirds!”.

You might fail to see a connection between the random evolutionary and geological events leading to hummingbird range, the random evolutionary chances of me being born within that range, and my feeling a certain pride of association or feeling of ownership with regard to these facts.

I might argue, “What you fail to account for is, these stunning creatures possess amazing near-magical abilities and I very much enjoy observing their behavior”. You might then concede that, by comparison to mere humans, the physical abilities of hummingbirds are indeed extraordinary and observing these beautiful creatures is a worthy pastime. However, you may still feel this falls short with regard to my prideful-kinship or ownership-like feelings.

What if I told you how, when relating to friends the amazing achievements of my humming birds, I would excitedly claim, “We did it! We won the gathering nectar game!” Your first thought might be (as you began backing away), “WTF is this guy talking about? He played no part in the gathering the nectar game. In fact, he appears to be conflating his mere observation of the events with the events themselves. Stranger still, he may be laboring under some illusion that his excited observation, in some way, contributed to the outcome”.